Response to important message
Posted By: TravelinMT on 2009-04-18
In Reply to: This is important. see message - deb
Deb,
Apparently they have changed the requirements. If you go on the website they say anyone can take the test, but they suggest two-years acute care experience for success on the test. It used to be you could not even take the test without two-years experience.
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See important, important message inside.
I put my real name and e-mail up here. The rest of you, do not let this person steal your dreams.
I stumbled onto this profession 30 years ago when transcription was part of my office duties. I went from there to a huge hospital and worked there for 15 years, all the while taking extra work from home (mostly because I just love the work, but also for extra money).
During the past 30 years, I have supported my family of four without a lot of help from my husband. That includes buying my daughter a very expensive horse and all the accoutrements (sp?) - including riding lessons, horse shows, show clothes, etc., etc. My son has a very expensive hobby that I also funded. I ran an entire household on my earnings.
I'm saying this to illustrate to you that it can be done, but you sure can't send off sloppy records. You have to learn the correct way. You have to be smart. You have to listen and be willing to be humiliated once every now and then!
MT may or may not be for you, but do not let one unsuccessful person define your future. There are plenty of us out here who make a wonderful living at this.
This is important. see message
You need to know that although you might have a "certificate" from an MT school, you are not a certified MT. In order to be certified, you need to have 2 years' experience and then take and pass a test with the AHDI (formerly AAMT).
You need to know this because when looking for a job, if you say you are "certified" and the employer checks the list of CMTs (certified MTs) and you are not on it, they will think you are lying about it to get the job.
It is a very common mistake, lots of new grads think because they have a "certificate" that they are certified, but there is a big difference.
Good luck in finding a job.
Wow, this busy message board and no one has a response? Doesn't matter anyway, I've already s
nm
It is important to get your foot in the door
You can command more money as soon as you can prove your skills. I agree with those who say to take this entry level job and move up the ladder from there.
re this poster's response consider the bad response
It's hard to tell because you are leaving out one important item
it says "can work from home after training period."
Is this a place that is local to you? Why don't you try googling the email address and see what comes up.
There are some hospitals that are willing to train people for this job, but I have found that happens in very very tiny hospitals where they may have something like 40 beds or less.
"well-trained" is the important point here
Those who aren't are running out of job options. The employers won't hire or keep people who are not properly prepared. They are dumping the MT services who don't have high standards.
More important than typing speed I hope
you chose a good school. Doesn't matter how fast you type if you can't get a job because she chose a more "affordable" school that didn't give you the education you need to get a job.
Do not short yourself on the most important part of your career
You will be sorry if you try take the easy way out. Trust me, been there. After wasting 1 year and lots of money at one program, I went to the college and received excellent training. I graduated with straight A's on both programs.
Thank you for the response
Thanks for that response. I also posted on 2 other MT message boards and got the same response you gave me, I will hold off on doing that for now. I'm still pretty new at this so I was getting frustrated with my slow speed. But, I think I just need to be more patient with myself, I do have a good Expander program that I use.
response
I was looking into Career Step and M-Tec. After researching both, I'm not sure which one to choose.. I take it you went through Career Step.?
response
Executive Transcription Solutions is the company. Thank you all for your help
Thank you for your response
I emailed Linda for information. I have heard something about a sallie mae foundation (spelling??) somewhere at one time. Can anyone help on that subject? Where do I find out the information ????
in response
Don't give up. Have you tested on some of the online sites? All I can tell you is that it can be done. Test, Test, Test if you haven't already. Email your resume to everyone, even those who say they require 2,5,10 years. I probably have not received responses to half of the emails I have sent out. I am a newbie, too, but I now have a PT and FT job. Good luck to you!
In response
"I never said MTec was dishonest. The gist of the post was that an MT training school could not give objective advice to a person considering purchasing their product. The OP was simply told to take this into consideration. Surely no one can disagree with that statement?"
I think I can disagree, Jo. I absolutely can (and do) give objective advice about the profession and would never mislead a prospective student into thinking that choosing M-Tec will guarantee them job placement or an easy ride to success. I have turned away many a prospective student and probably terminated an equal number for lack of progress or poor scores.
I have been an MT practitioner since 1971 and have worked in hospital medical records, radiology, you name it.
I currently own and operate a home-based MT service with 15 clients and 6 ICs. While that is small potatoes compared to some, I do it to keep my hand on the pulse of the industry. I experience every change this industry has made, right down to the EHR, VR, point-and-click templates and offshoring. I live it just like everyone here, and I have been just as frustrated over some of the changes as many of you here. I have not noticed any changes in the industry as a whole in terms of companies hiring qualififed MTs for entry-level positions, whether it be part-time or full-time, unless you want to talk about the growing requests for entry-level MTs recently?
I tell anyone who asks of my experiences with my service switching to an EMR-based system, but I will also tell you about our 96% placement rate for our graduates. These are figures that can be checked with our state board.
I feel confident that I can speak with authority on any MT-related issues without bias -- those are just the facts! :)
Does this mean I won't be happy to talk with you about the pros of enrolling through M-TEC? Naaah -- I have to be honest -- I think our course is one of the best on the market, and many employers and happy graduates would agree.
Thank you for your response.
Thank you for your response, Melissa. As before mentioned, I'd had trouble grasping the full concept of verbatim transcribing - especially when changes would have to be made for appropriateness without changing what the dictator said. Currently, the QA in my internship just sends back short responses (Nice report, uploaded; this word s/b another word, corrections attached, uploaded; etc.). The feedback is nice, but I didn't always know why one word should be another word when I typed what the dictator said. Those words could very well be word agreement. I hope I have the right understanding now. Thank you again for your response, it helps.
Response
Dianne,
Please be reasonable. You enrolled on August 10 using our 7 month payment plan. You paid $399 down and then on August 18 you paid an additional $554.24 to have your second shipment sent. As stated our on site, materials are shipped usually within 2 -3 business days from enrollment, and then take 5 to 10 business days (a total of up to 13 business days). When you contacted us yesterday, the materials had been 14 business days. Obviously, there was a delay, but, unfortunately, we have no control over the postal service. To compensate for this delay, your dictionary was ordered through Amazon to be delivered the following day. It was brought to my attention this morning, that according to the tracking #, your first shipment arrived yesterday morning. The same day you started voicing your complaints everywhere. I don't understand why you are continuing to do so when we have done everything possible to correct the problem. You have been doing so well with your testing, and with your medical background, I am sure you will continue to. To compensate further for this delay, which fortunately did not prevent you from continuing with the course, we would like to offer you a free upgrade to the Expert edition. This edition includes additional dictation, additional online modules, our Work Placement Program, and the ability to enroll in our Internship Program. If you decide to withdraw from the course, please contact me directly and I will start the procedures. I also wanted to inform you that we are looking into an alternate shipping service to prevent this from happening in the future.
Sincerely,
Amy Rudd
School Director
Virtual Learning Center
Response
1) It is not OUR responsibility to check out your career choices for you and warn you.
2) If you'd bother really checking around and talking those who work for the virtual companies, you would have learned this BEFORE you made your choice!!!
My goodness. Don't you realize that companies SELLING education are in business to make money? Of course they're not going to tell you, "Come! Take our course! Spend your money and time! But you'll be hard pressed to get a job, may never get the WAH opportunity you want. But hey! Don't let that stop you! Just write out that check and you'll be well on your way to your DREAM (as in not gonna happen) job!"
Does it not make sense to you that anything with a get-rich-quick scheme is just that, a scheme? What profession can you train in a year or less and come out making $40,000 from your home?! Sounds like a scam BECAUSE IT IS!!!!
So, here. I'll tell you straight up:
You're in stiff competition, sweetie. Those of us with years of actual inhouse acute care experience will always beat you out for a job because we worked INHOUSE and gained ACUTE CARE EXPERIENCE (heck, any experience is better than none) and didn't expect the top pay, top positions, top anything to start.
You've also got competition from technology (speech recognition) leaving you with the icky dictators (and as a new MT, you have difficulty doing the good ones most of the time).
You've also got competition because it is just cheaper labor to send work to India. Besides, India is working their daytime hours while we all sleep -- because no one wants to work other than M-F 8-5. Also, with the severe shortage of experienced MTs capable of producing high-quality high-production work that isn't dependent on 100% QA, sending out is a viable option.
You have been told.
Thank you for your response!
x
Thanks for your response!!
very helpful :P
response
Tell the doctors to take some responsibility, to speak English and those who do, speak clearly and with a little more respect to the transcriptionist. We ARE NOT DOCTORS. This infuriates me !!! This is bullsh_t.
Response
That is a somewhat difficult comparison because very few people, if any, complete more than 1 of the courses you mentioned so they would not be able to give a fair comparison of job search results. I can say that I see very few M-Tec or Andrews grads complaining of an inability to find that first job.
Perhaps another question you might also want to ask is whether the grads were able to hold onto that first job for the 2+ years that is the typical minimum experience requirement for the industry. While I know more CS grads than I do Andrews or M-TEC grads (because I went to CS), I know very few CS grads that did not spend at least a portion of their first post-grad year job-hopping. I only know 4 CS grads (including myself) that are still with their initial employer after more than 2 years.
The third thing might want to inquire about is the type of position (clinic versus acute care)graduates from each school are able to obtain and what grads from each school can expect in regard to starting pay. At the CS student forum, I have seen grads profess to be willing to work 1-3 cpl or even for free just to "get their foot in the door" because they have not been successful in finding a job.
I have been trying business with no response
I have taken one test and did not pass because they wanted a 98% accuracy and I believe that I had a 94%. All the other companies that I have applied at tell me that they want experience or I keep bugging them to take their test. I am now cold calling doctor offices to see if they need anything. I know 3 people in this field that work from home and they did not have trouble finding a job at all. They all started about three years ago though.
Thanks for the tactful response
My grammar may be a bit rusty, but you could have left the laughing smiley out and still have made your point, in a much nicer way.
I was merely expressing frustration that people discount all of the time one spends studying to prepare to do this kind of work. I was trying to explain to my dh the other night why I wanted to attend a good MT school, and his response was "What's so hard? The Dr. talks, and you type". He figures that with what I know already, I can learn the rest (in his opinion, not much more to learn) on someone else's dime. The only thing that got through to him was that I could not get hired to work from home for a national with the training I currently have, and that I could make more money right off the bat if I did complete the training. He still won't accept that the training is necessary to do the work, but has to accept that to get hired at a better wage, I will need better training.
I apologize if I misled you to infer that I felt I was totally qualified to be an MT and scoffed at anyone who was less qualified than I. I also apologize if I led you to believe that I don't have respect for how difficult the work is. I am terrified of failing at this and want to go through a good program, and hope to do so soon. I am qualified enough to satisfy this one particular employer, but just barely. I am in no position to train someone or try to get them hired, and I would never suggest that the path I took to get this job is a recommended way to do it.
Well, I am off to practice and study some more before starting work next week.
I will be more aware of my grammar when posting on this forum. Would you recommend the Gregg Manual as a good reference or is there a better one out there? Can we make peace?
Frustrated response
Medquist will hire you out of school as well as Spheris. Go to Mtjobs.com and click on the red bubble (search jobs) good luck
another good response!!!
nm
I posted a response to her too (sm)
Someone else responded to her original post and gave her constructive information regarding her grammar. She then turned around and told that person to kiss her you-know-what, etc. Then she kept complaining that people were offending her and wanted posts deleted. The administrator did so and also deleted her offensive post. What goes around comes around. The administrator admonished us not to treat her badly. When she used offensive language to the first response she was asking for it. Of course, that is just my opinion. Are we still allowed those? We spend so much time trying to send out perfect work that when we are posting on these boards it is easy to get lazy and not proof as well. It is just in our nature that these errors would jump out at someone else reading them. We do get paid for that, after all. Of course, there is no need to criticize each mistake made on this board although, as I stated previously, when you come here with an attitude you can be pretty sure that you will get it back x10.
Peace out....
Got a response from Medware
I received a response from Medware with their employee screening info as well as a few transcription "tests". Looked it over and filled out all of the info as well as did the tests and sent it back. I did a search on this company and got a mix of people who loved working for them and others who did not. Any input would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks!
Jill
Response to M-TEC Question
Hi Daphne,
I took the Tier 1 Premier Program a little over 2 years ago. My experience with M-Tec was wonderful. I also had no medical background. It is a very comprehensive course, but I truly enjoyed it and learned so much. You asked if Tier 1 Premier was necessary. My advice to you is if you want to work from home, you should definitely take the Premier program. If you take the Basic program, you generally have to work onsite somewhere until you are ready to work on your own. As a student at M-TEC, you will have your own personal instructor assigned to you to answer any questions along the way. This is a great school. Not only is your instructor available to you, but the directors of the school are also very accessible. The student forums are very supportive too. There are many companies who will waive the 2-year experience requirement if you are a Premier graduate of M-TEC with a decent GPA. You really can't go wrong with M-TEC. I think it was worth every penny.
response to jenn
Good for you!
However, I've been in this business for more than 20 years. I've seen plenty of nurses think they can and are doing a great job and simply cannot do it.
It amazes me how much they don't know.
In response to your question
They clearly are a SCAM. Don't be tempted to buy their equipment. They rip people off their money without providing them with real training and guaranteed employment.
In response to mentor help
I definitely am in need of a mentor. I graduated over a year ago and I am about to give up. I have had a few close calls, but did not come through. Any help will be Great, Thank You!
in response to your post
Hi Winnie, -- first of all why do you want to be an MT? Stay at home mom with young kids? Promises of $40k-100K a year -- if so, you are thinking the wrong career -- when I worked outside the home, I was able to take daycare as a tax deduction as well as private schools -- give it a second thought cause the great tremendous money isnt here and I have been doing this for over 30 years
Response for Teresa - please see inside.
I'm not sure what "Medical Office Occupations" is, but if it's a school for medical transcription, they should give you some idea of how to find a job. If they can't help you find a job - then I hate to tell you this, but you're going to have a hard time.
Frankly, it is VERY difficult for someone with no experience to find a job unless they graduated from Andrews, MTEC, or Career Step. Some have found they can only get local in-house jobs at the beginning (and are lucky to find those).
When you say "no one will listen to you" - who exactly do you mean? Have you applied at any of the companies mentioned here? Taken any transcription tests?
You never know who is going to be on boards like this - recruiters, small MTSO owners, etc., and I would recommend making sure your posts are professional and reflect good English skills.
Read these posts and go through the archives for more information, as well.
Newbie/Student response
I am not yet a professional MT, as I am still in school and have been unable to find employment, but from what I have learned so far in school I understand that paying attention to details is one of the most important aspects of being an MT. If this is actually the case, why would anyone take a possible employment opportunity so lightly as to skip directions or misspell words on an application? For those of us who are trying very hard to find work, this is rather insulting. An MT is supposed to be proficient in grammatical skills (!!!!!), so anyone applying for a position should have enough respect for himself and the company that he is applying to that he would at least read the instructions on the application. I am not trying to be rude or cruel in any way, but I just feel that so many errors on an application would most likely discourage an employer from hiring the applicant.
Another thing, when looking for employment last night I accidentally stumbled across an Indian transcription company. On it were many testimonials from employees and hopeful employees of the company. There were so many misspelled and out of context words in these statements! I know that my grammar has a long way to go; that’s why I keep and handbook by my side when I am trying to perform professionally. Why is it that so many companies prefer these people that can’t even use English well over Americans that are studying to perfect the use of our native language? I am having a hard time finding any company that is willing to hire a new-grad, so all of the bad grammar coming from the Transcriptionist on that site hit my mean bone. Please don’t think I am a bitter, sarcastic person because I am not. I just find myself a little erked at offshore companies. I know that I will find I great opportunity soon enough.
Wow!!! Great response. Would hire you myself if I could!!!!!!
nm
I posted my response to you above accidentally.
d
Now that's what I call a response to a question!
Finally, someone who answers a question instead of nit-picking apart someone's question because they didn't use correct grammar or punctuation. Bravo to you for offering up some good, helpful advice!
mt gave a good response
Focus uses the EditScript platform and it was actually pretty good with VR. However, I didn't like editing. I would rather type and am faster typing than editing reports.
update on my newbie's response!! too funny!! sm
I sent her a reply telling her I was sorry, but I didn't think she had what it takes to be an MT, as it is very detail oriented job. She told me, I'm sorry, but I did not type that. I had my son respond for me, because I was getting ready for work. I did not know I was being tested via email. then she ripped into me with For your information, I wasn't applying for the job, I was requesting information to see if I would even be interested. I'm sorry that you are on your high horse, and need to be pushed off!!! Wow...very mean! I happen to work for a living and graduated with a great GPA for a very reputable MT school, you don't even know me women so don't judge me!!!!
Omigosh, I laughed till I cried 
"software error" this is in response to dilemma post
nm
My deepest apologies because in reading my response and that icon, it came out much more sinister
of a remark, which was not intended as so sarcastic.
Here are some great links and I hope they help!
Grammar errors: http://esl.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsu.edu%3A8080%2F%7Ebrians%2Ferrors%2Ferrors.html
Miriam Webster Online: http://www.m-w.com
OneLook Dictionary: http://www.onelook.com
Grammar Slammers: http://englishplus.com/grammar/mistcont.htm
Guide to Grammar and Writing: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar
see message
There is no difference in training. In general, I think it would be easier to start out in house if possible. There will be other people to help you with questions, etc., plus most in house positions are hourly positions. You may still have a quota to meet, but at least you can count on the hourly pay.
Your training would need to be very good to start out at home in the beginning. At home you are pretty much on your own. You will need good reference materials. Most at home positions are paid by production. That is good if you are fast. But if you are just starting out, you may not make much in the beginning.
All of this will depend on your individual needs and wants. I think the best case scenario is to get a job in house for a couple years, then transition to home. Good luck.
no message...........
@
See message
Long story, but the bottom line is after they switch me to something I'm unfamiliar with they tell me they don't have the time to train me on it, so where do I go from there. Then the company instituted some 98% accuracy policy and new QA policy. I would never met their expectations so why bother? If they were accommodating, I would understand, but they don't have the time. I understand that. Just want suggestions to assist me so if I try again will be more prepared.
Thanks for your message
Guys thanks for your messages. It was helpful.
See message.
If you are an IC, they only need your SS number. If you are an employee, then they need two forms of ID, such as driver's license and one other (maybe copy of birth certificate) and your home address.
A lot of companies who hire people for IC positions don't know the law and ask for all kinds of stuff.
They don't need a copy of your SS #, only your number.
See message
First of all, I can't believe the company did not provide you a foot pedal.....hmmmm. Anyway, try going to www.transcriptiongear.com. They have every kind of pedal. If you call their toll-free number and tell them you need a pedal for eScription, I bet they will know what you need. Also, you could try going to www.escription.com and asking questions on their forum. Good luck-!!
Please see message.
First, do an extensive search on the internet for medical transcription companies, then test with the ones that will allow you to. Even though some companies may say they require two or more years of experience, some will waive that if you do well on their test. Try Spheris and Sten-Tel. They are known for sometimes hiring newbies.
Second, don't get discouraged! It can take a while to land your first job, but be persistent. It took me about five months for me to get my first job. Once you are in, then you will be gaining the experience required for applying for other jobs down the road.
Third, NEVER pay to work! This might sound strange, but there really are scammers out there ready to prey on newbies desperate to get their foot in the door. Some will say you need to purchase their software, or a footpedal directly from them, but you don't. You can always purchase those things independently.
Best of luck to you!
see message
Webmedx and Diskriter also provide the computer to the MT!
nm = no message, sm = see message,
M-Tec is the actual name of an excellent on-line school. Google that spelling plus medical transcription and you'll find the website. The other school would be Andrews, do a Google search the same way. Read about those programs and see how yours compares.
These 2 schools are worth every penny because students do get jobs right away.
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